The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1887-06-29
Well Answered.

Some time ago Henry George gave
an exposition of his land theories be-
fore the students of business college
in New York. In response to an invi-
tation Mr.. George Gunton, the we'll
known lecturer and writer on social
economics, has given the students the
other side of the question. His reply
to Mr.. Georges propositions and argu-
ments seems unanswerable. Taking
up the latter's proposition that pow
erty is increasing with the increase of
productive power, Mr.. Gunton showed
from statistics and historical data that
it was not true either that poverty had
increased with the increase of pro-
ductive power or that rent had alb
sorbed an increasing proportion of the
gain of civilization. He cited facts to
show that though rent had actually in
creased it had, relatively to the wealth
produced, decreased continuously-that
during the last one hundred fifty years
it had, in fact, decreased fully fifty per
cent; that prices had fallen during the
same time from thirty to fifty per cent,
and that wages had risen nearly one
hundred per cent.
Mr.. Gunton next combatted the state
ment that there is no power on earth
which can rightfully make grant of
exclusive ownership in land. If this
were true, he argued, the United States
cannot have exclusive ownership of its
territory. If the United States has a
right to own its territory as against
other nations, then has not for the
same reason New York State right to
own land as against the United States,
or New York city as against New York
State; and if so, why not an individual
as against New York city? In other
words, whatever principle will give the
fifty millions of people in this country
the right to own land will give ten
millions or one million or one person
that right. In short, there is no such
thing as absolute ownership. In So
ciety everything is conditional. The
very idea of society is that everything
must be done in harmony with the
good of the whole, and therefore the
question of land-ownership is not a
question of absolute right but ques-
ton of social expediency. The prin-
ciple of taking unearned increments on
land would simply be taking the profits
of business.
The absurd scheme to abolish pow
erty was next considered. Mr.. Gunton
argued that poverty can only be di-
minished by increasing wealth. 1t can
never be abolished by mere redistri-
button, because there is not wealth
enough in the community, however
distributed, to make any important re-
duction in poverty. Wealth can only
be increased as the methods of pro-
ducing it are improved. Improved
methods of production, such as ma
chinery, etc., can only be employed in
proportion as capital is concentrated,
and therefore instead of abolishing the
concentration of capital in large corpo-
rations, it is only by that means that in
creased production of wealth can be
accomplished. In proportion as large
concerns supplant small ones, and large
firms supplant small firms, everything
that is produced is produced cheaper
and more abundantly. In the manu-
facture of cotton cloth in 1881 it took
four cents on every pound of cotton
cloth produced to give the capitalist
who had small factories six per cent
on his invested capital. To-day it takes
little over one and one-half cents on
each pound of cloth to give him the
same return; and therefore he takes
less than one-half the amount out of
what he produces to-day in the large
concerns than he did in 1881 with the
small concerns. Since that year prices
have greatly fallen, wages have risen
more than fifty per cent and pauper-
ism has been greatly reduced.